That
day the sun was acting out like a crazy acupuncturist struggling to
stick needles into a calloused skin. The maddening heat pricked,
stabbed and stung with the savage wrath of hornets whose nests had
been wantonly attacked. At more than 100 degrees, the searing heat
cooked members of the class into a drooping and drowsing condition.

We
had no conditioned air. The big pipes designed for central
air-conditioning were in disrepair even though they had never been
used. The cranks that planned the gigantic building never reckoned
with the energy to power the huge air-conditioners. So the pipes
became home to a creepy colony of spiders.

Often
when a powerful wind from a river that snaked behind the university
hit the classrooms, cobwebs dropped like soot from a squalid firewood
kitchen. The webs hung from the dilapidated ceiling, draped like
dirty curtains and flailed like traditional mourners at a wake.

There
were a few ceiling fans. Those that could be coaxed to come alive
anytime we had electricity whirred as if they were so retarded they
lost memory of their function. Rather than cool anything, they
aggravated the already cranky situation.

Each
class day, from the crown of our head to the soles of our feet,
rivulets of sweat freely broke and cascaded agreeably with the
crushingly hot and humid weather.

Making
eye contact with students was impossible. The class originally
intended to sit 25 students now looked like an overcrowded mini
stadium. Since there were no desks, students improvised.

They
took notes by placing notebooks on the backs of their mates. From my
platform, the students were like a flock of birds in flight. Trying
to cope with the unwholesome situation, they used notebooks,
handkerchiefs and even bare palms to fan themselves. As they waved
these, the class hummed with noise and chatter, which made teaching
and learning a ludicrous and disastrous affair.

By
the hallway, kids driven out of schools by the fee drive did a brisk
business, hawking. “Buy pure wata,” some shouted in
Nigerian Pidgin English. In a bid to out-scream their fellow hawkers,
their announcement was deep throated. Of course, the water was
anything but pure. It could have been fetched from a sewer or
slagheap.

This
untreated water, packaged in waterproof sachets, was the cause of
death for innumerable folks, especially travelers. But with throats
parched by the boiling sun, people never bothered how close they were
to the grave. Authorities cared nothing, for in our ruthless tyranny,
all that mattered was whether the government got its tax money.

“Me
I get boiled pear, groundnut and fresh coconut,” another kid
carrying a large smoking basin laden with these items, advertised in
turn.

Corn,
when combined in a hungry mouth with the stuff the child touted, was
quite a delicacy. As the hawkers darted through the passageway and
chased half-heartedly by university security men, students who could
afford it reached out through windows with broken panes and grabbed
their lunch. It
was at that moment that it happened.

As
the aroma of the hawkers’ food wafted through the class, a
student who had been studying for days without food was overpowered
by hunger. Suddenly frothing at the mouth, he collapsed on the bare
cement floor.

His
slump was greeted by an uproar. Not knowing the cause for the
stampede, I became apprehensive. Students exhausted and impoverished
by the system frequently turned to gang violence and would open fire
on opposing gang members in class.

A
class wag saved me the embarrassment of running with my tail between
the legs. “Oga, person don kaput there o! I been know say zero
zero wata go born something one day in this class,” he said in
our beloved pidgin. It was a language cuts across social class in the
country though I never allowed it in class. Since he was right about
state pillage giving birth to monsters, I couldn’t reproach the
way he said it.

He
was telling me that someone had dropped dead from hunger. Zero zero
wata was the students’ slang for having nothing for breakfast
and lunch and taking a cup of water for dinner. Oga is Nigerian for
big man. Since I ran the course and held terminal degrees, I was in
the eyes of students, a “big man.”

In
those days our secretary for communications had proudly announced to
a shocked nation that telephone was not for the poor. So only the
very rich had cellphones. Since I was not so blessed, I had none to
call our medical center to send an ambulance when I eventually got to
the unconscious student.

I
asked a student to go get an ambulance and threw the keys of my
jalopy at him. Since the car would not start without a nudge, I asked
other students to give him a push. Someone shouted, “Oga no
worry o, ambulance no get tires o!”

“How
you sabi,” another person asked indignantly. “Yesterday
when someone was shot in the head by the Buccaneers, we called the
medical center and was told the tires of the ambulance were worn
out,” he replied.

“How
you know na dem?”

“What
if na Pyrates?”

“Suppose
na Black Axe?”

“Or
Eyee Confranternity?”

“What
of Black Bra?”

The
students bandied back and forth about the secret combinations on
campus.

Many
students chorused, “I no de for house o,” thus
disassociating themselves from risk. The Buccaneer Confraternity was
one of the most dreaded on campus. Its motto was, “Blood for
Blood: No Price No Pay.”

Like
other gangs, membership was secret and people rarely talked
flippantly about them. When offended they killed just as swiftly as
leaders in the larger society. Authorities did nothing about the
murders because government had long abdicated its responsibility
towards ordinary citizens. Some rumored that the gangs were a pool
for the state to recruit thugs.

In
the midst of the chatter, someone volunteered to piggyback the sick
student to the clinic a mile away. Another did something even more
creative in the circumstance. She shoved some food into the mouth of
the fainting student. At first the student choked.

When
she poured water on his head, he revived and unexpectedly chewed the
food in his mouth with the avidity of a starving camel chancing upon
some straw in the desert. Fully recovered now, the sick student who
before now was as derelict as a body just waking from a tomb sat up
with agility and asked for more.

The
girl obliged with a canned soda while everyone else exploded in
laughter.

Teaching
in Nigeria exposed me to the pitiable plight of many. After years of
struggling with it, I realized that keeping its youth illiterate and
backward was a good way for government to entrench tyranny. Whenever
students rioted against the cruelty, troops brutally crushed the
demonstration.

The
prophet who wrote that when the wicked rule, the people suffer, knew
it well. Nothing in my country jumps at me more than the needless
human hardship. Going by her staggering human and natural resources,
Nigeria should nowhere near the groveling poverty in which she is
mired.

I
have lived close to those who live like rats in a trap, between life
and death, yet manage to survive and excel mostly through dogged
will. Their struggles and extraordinary fortitude persuade me Oscar
Wilde was right when he observed that, “The true perfection of
man lies not in what man has, but in what man is.”

Facing
up to degrading hardship was testimony to their resilience. It did
not matter they studied with bush lanterns. They were not discouraged
living in hostels prisoners in Dickens’ novels would have
considered an affront. It did not matter they had no advocates. They
were not deterred when academic calendars were frequently disrupted
as professors went on indefinite strike actions.

Imo Ben Eshiet was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Raised in his village, Uruk Enung, and at
several cities in his country including Nsukka, Enugu, Umuahia, Eket and Calabar, Eshiet is a
detribalized Nigerian. Although he was extensively exposed to Western education right from
childhood in his country where he obtained a PhD in English and Literary Studies from the
University of Calabar, he is well nurtured in African history, politics, culture and traditions.

Imo is currently a teacher in the high priests group in the Summit Ward of the Greensboro North
Carolina Stake.